Although I can't tell you too much here about the sheep shearing course I did, I can show you some videos of the instructor. After all, you can't print a video! The instructor was Phil Hart, a Gold Seal shearer, Wool Board Shearing Instructor and Competition Judge. He stars in seven videos made by FarmingAds about sheep shearing. I just hope I manage to embed the videos OK, I'm not that good with all this technical stuff!
In this video Phil demonstrates how to dag and shear a sheep. See this lively Suffolk Mule do a handstand!
This is my favourite film. In this film Phil takes a sheep he has already shorn and 'shears' it with a wax crayon so that you can see the shearing pattern without all the wool in the way:
Apparently on one course Phil did this with a red crayon. Later, once the sheep had been turned out in the field, the farm had a visit from the RSPCA, someone had reported the shearers had slashed a sheep to bits! Now Phil never does this exercise with a red crayon.
If you feel inspired to try sheep shearing I strongly suggest you go on a proper course, sheep shearing is not something you can learn from scratch by watching a YouTube video.
Great post! Very informative. Nice to see exactly what's happening; it's hard to tell when it's happening so quickly!
ReplyDeleteWhat great videos to share. It's always nice to know where the fiber comes from that I use.
ReplyDeleteThank you! I love the wax crayon video, the pattern is very precise and you're right, it's hard to see what is actually happening when the shearer is working fast.
ReplyDeleteI'm amazed! I've never seen a sheep sheared so thank you for sharing this. Wow!
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